graze
English
Etymology
From Old English grasian (“to feed on grass”), from græs (“grass”).
Noun
graze (plural grazes)
Translations
act of grazing or scratching lightly
light scratch
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Verb
graze (third-person singular simple present grazes, present participle grazing, simple past and past participle grazed)
- (transitive) To feed or supply (cattle, sheep, etc.) with grass; to furnish pasture for.
- Jonathan Swift
- a field or two to graze his cows
- 1999: Although it is perfectly good meadowland, none of the villagers has ever grazed animals on the meadow on the other side of the wall. — Stardust, Neil Gaiman, page 4 (2001 Perennial Edition).
- Jonathan Swift
- (transitive, intransitive) To feed on; to eat (growing herbage); to eat grass from (a pasture)
- Cattle graze in the meadows.
- Alexander Pope
- The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead.
- 1993, John Montroll, Origami Inside-Out (page 41)
- The bird [Canada goose] is more often found on land than other waterfowl because of its love for seeds and grains. The long neck is well adapted for grazing.
- (transitive) To tend (cattle, etc.) while grazing.
- 1596-98, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act I, scene iii:
- Shylock: When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's sheep
- 1596-98, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act I, scene iii:
- (transitive) To rub or touch lightly the surface of (a thing) in passing.
- the bullet grazed the wall
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 23
- But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through.
- (transitive) To cause a slight wound to; to scratch.
- to graze one's knee
- (intransitive) To yield grass for grazing.
- Francis Bacon
- The sewers must be kept so as the water may not stay too long in the spring; for then the ground continueth the wet, whereby it will never graze to purpose that year.
- Francis Bacon
Derived terms
Translations
to feed or supply with grass
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to eat grass from a pasture
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to tend cattle while grazing
to rub or touch lightly the surface of in passing
to cause a slight wound to
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Dutch
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